


Come Home to Me

by gayfishman



Category: Marvel (Movies), Thor (2011)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, WWI AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 22:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayfishman/pseuds/gayfishman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the words written by Frederic Weatherly to "Londonderry Air," aka Danny Boy. Basically a WWI AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Home to Me

The two brothers live up in the highlands, a fair distance from small village in the valley, where there is nothing but rock and grass and no company but for the sheep and each other. They were the questionable kind of folk fathers warned their maiden daughters about, who had not much of money or respect or anything else. Their parents had perished from the plague just before Loki turned of age, and while Thor survived the illness, he never recovered. The people of the valley often forgot that they were up there, lurking just beyond the horizon in a rickety old shack, and were only reminded of their existence when Loki came down at the beginning and end of the summer season to trade wool and meat for food and clothes. 

One cold autumn night, when the frigid wind slashes at their roof and the brothers are wrapped together in front of the fire preparing for sleep, a messenger comes to their door. A war has been declared, he says, and the King is drafting all single, able bodied men above the age of 18. 

Thor has long since been crippled with the illness that took his parents, and Loki is needed to take care of the sheep. Neither has much desire for the glory of war or to prove his patriotism; the highlands have always been their life, and the idea of adventure is distasteful in their minds. But to refuse conscription is treason, so one of them must go.  
“I am a dead man walking,” Thor says. “Rather offer this half-a-life than waste yours.”

Loki laughs humourlessly. “You cannot even make it to bottom of this hill. They will not take you. I will not be gone long; the war will be over before the end of this winter,” he says assuringly.

They sell their sheep and stock up on food and firewood for the winter. Loki pays one of the village boys to check up on his brother every month.  


“Do not be gone long. Come back to me,” Thor says, gripping the back of Loki’s neck and holding him close. He presses his nose into Loki’s hair now cropped short and breathes in deep. “I love you, brother,” he whispers.

“I know,” Loki says, eyes twinkling, and leaves.

\---

On clear nights, Loki and the other soldiers of his platoon would lie down in the cold mud of the trenches and gaze at the stars, fingers and feet frozen stiff. They’d share a pack of fags, reminiscing wistfully of the sweetheart girlfriends and pregnant wives they left back home. 

“Shepherd,” one calls, an especially foul smelling one with a crooked front tooth named Danny. “You got one waitin’ fer you back home?”

“Aye,” Loki says after a while, letting the smoke out through his teeth and watching it curl in the frosty air. “Might be gone by the time I get back, though. If I ever get back.”

They stay quiet for a while after that, each revelling in the warmth of fond memories of home, until an officer comes by to berate them for blocking the narrow walkway. 

\---

Loki is a talented sniper; he has more than 40 confirmed kills to his name. He has sharp eyes; he used to win every game of hide and seek he and Thor played in the flat meadows of his home. It seems so far away now, a distant place he has trouble remembering, like waking up from a foggy dream. He’s forgotten the colour of his stone house, the shape of the land the sheep would graze in. The lush green of the fields seem impossible when all Loki ever sees is the dull monochrome of the trenches and No Man’s Land and the bright red that spills from defeated foes and fallen allies. 

He remembers Thor though. Not his face; Loki hates himself for not being able to remember what his brother looks like, but he recalls with frightening clarity the clear deep blue of his eyes and his long unruly hair. He remembers Thor’s voice, deceptively strong and loud, and he can hear echoes of it sometimes, just before he falls asleep among the rats and lice. 

He remembers Thor’s calloused yet gentle hands, slightly larger than his own, and if he wraps his hand around his prick and imagines it to be Thor’s hand on nights when he feels especially lonely and homesick, no one has to know.

Inhale. Exhale. 

Loki finds waiting to be relaxing. He waits and waits for the smallest slip of movement in the waste of No Man’s Land, meditating. A glimpse of soft, smiling eyes flashes by in his mind’s eye. 

Inhale. Exhale.

A nose at the hair behind his ear, a warm hand at the joint of his shoulder and neck, thumb tenderly caressing.

He squeezes the trigger.

\---

When Loki limps into the village at the bottom of the valley, he’s smiling. It’s the first smile that has graced his lips in four years, but he’s not aware he’s even doing it, so delighted is he to reunite with his brother. He ignores the sympathetic looks of pity the people give him when they see that he is missing one leg from the knee down. His foot was blown off by a shell, and the rest of his leg amputated for infection. 

He has a lot of money saved up from his time at the front, and he’s already made plans to get one of the city doctors to come up to the highlands to cure Thor of his affliction. There will be enough left over to buy a few sheep if Thor is feeling well enough to look after them.

It takes him most of the day to hobble up the hills and across the vast meadows to the old stone house; he hadn’t forgotten the land after all. 

It’s nearly dark by the time Loki reaches the house. He frowns. There is no firelight crackling in the hearth, and the air smells old and stale. There is no evidence of anyone living here and Thor is nowhere to be found. Loki drops his crutches and hops outside to yell his name in every direction around the house. The wind carries his voice away and Loki screams for Thor until he has no voice left.

Night has settled, and the moonlight shines on the hills, lighting Loki’s way. His body is exhausted but he is blind with anger, heart pumping furiously. He’s never been this angry before, not even when he woke up to find that he was missing a leg. He stumbles and falls a few times, and it’s well into the night by the time he reaches the bottom of the valley. He pounds violently at the door of the first house he reaches, rasping madly with his hoarse voice.

An agitated old man opens the door with a candle, and his expression softens when he sees that it’s Loki.

“Where’s Thor?” Loki growls, dropping one of crutches and grabbing the man’s throat. “Where?”

The man puts a firm and gentle hand on Loki’s. “He’s dead, lad. Passed the winter after you left.”

Loki crumples to the ground and weeps, letting out the tears he held back for four years.

\---

Thor’s grave is at the crest of an oddly shaped hill that overlooks the slope of land their house sits on. The gravestone is smooth and pale, bare but for the name carved simply on the front. He wipes the stone with the sleeve of his uniform, clearing off the dirt and moss.

He sits next to the gravestone, patting the grassy ground where Thor is buried.

“I came back,” he manages through his swollen throat. “I came back to you. Thor.” He swallows a sob and chokes. “You were supposed to be here,” he whispers, and watches as the tears fall from his face and mark the soil in damp spots.

Loki lowers himself to the ground and presses his lips into the grass and dirt, smelling the earth shakily. “Ave,” he breathes softly, combing the grass with his fingers. The dirt tastes salty on his tongue and the breeze sifts through his hair. It reminds him of the way Thor used to smooth his hair when they lay together on the coldest of winter nights, cocooned in all the blankets they owned in front of the fire.

Loki chokes on a sob. “Ave.”

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for any historical inaccuracies and mistakes. I haven't proofread it. 
> 
> All my knowledge of WWI comes from my high school history class and Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, which I highly recommend :D


End file.
